The Luckiest

Author: Nefret24

Disclaimer: I think I've established that I do not own the West Wing and Josh n' Donna. Consider this another reminder (but please, tie a string around your finger for next time, eh?) And I also do not own the song "The Luckiest" written and performed by Ben Folds (from his cd "Rockin' the Suburbs"). That's a new addition for me. It's okay if you didn't know that.

Category: Josh/Donna, Josh POV, Sappy sappy sappity sappy sap with Angst on top. If that's a category. Oh yeah, and songfic. Slight spoilers for "Night Five." And the barest hint of Amy dislike sorry, can't help it, it is a J/D fic

Author's Note: Okay, so a really long time ago, I had this plot bunny attack me with a vengeance. After returning from the emergency room, I quickly posted it on JoshDonnaFF so that someone could perhaps save me if it attacked again. Namely it was to use "The Luckiest" in a Josh/Donna fic. Guess what? No one decided to help out- no one that I know of anyhow. So of course, the damn bunny attacked again (thirsty for blood, that little devil) after I watched "Night Five." As I nursed my wounds, I've decided to do as he asks before it happens again. And lastly, (god, am I getting longwinded!), songfics aren't generally my schtick so please forgive me if this gets butchered/sucks big time. Whatever.

Feedback is greatly appreciated. Remember, I can send the demon bunny to your house bwahahahaha!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

i don't get many things right the first time

in fact, i am told that a lot

I'm supposed to go home.

I'm sitting in my office with one small desk light on reminding myself that I should go home.

It's late, and I'm so tired that my eyes get blurry when I try to read the small numbers on my watch. Which probably wouldn't have the right time anyway, so I'm told.

I need to go home and sleep so that my eyes can focus. I need to go home and take a shower so that the knots in my shoulders dissipate. I need to go home and call Amy like she says every good boyfriend should.

I'm still here.

Practically everyone is gone. I think Leo's still around but Sam cleared out hours ago. Toby waited to walk CJ to the parking lot- something about her being upset over a murdered reported who was on assignment in the Congo.

Donna's gone. She left some indeterminate time ago that seems like hours. She looked tired.

I yawn and draw my eyebrows together as my cheeks protest the movement. I am so exhausted. I should go home. I'm not doing anything. I can do nothing just as effectually at home as I can here.

I don't want to go home.

now i know all the wrong turns,

the stumbles and falls brought me here

In the darkness of the office, I contemplate what I have made of myself. I have made it to the White House. I have an apartment. I have good friends. I have a significant other who has legs that go all the way to the floor.

For some reason, all this doesn't seem to matter. It's inconsequential and somehow superfluous. I can sit in this office, I can sit on my comfortable couch at home and the effect is the same.

I don't want to go home where multicolored streamers still hang from my lights, reminding me of Amy and the message on my answering machine that says I should call her.

I want to sit here and be where my friends are. Except that they're gone.

I watched them all leave. They all said goodbye to me, like I do sometimes when I leave before them. They stop briefly at the doorjamb, their bags heavy in their hands, and their coats half on and half off, just to say goodbye, see you tomorrow. Sometimes it's an added pointer or reminder but mostly it's just another acknowledgement of surviving another day. We made it, and we'll do it again tomorrow.

Now they're all gone and I'm still here, wondering why my doorjamb is empty, why no one is standing there telling me I ought to go home.

I know why.

She's gone home.

She went home because she was tired and something happened tonight that made her even more weary and I'm not entirely sure what that was. But she packed her shoulder bag with her planners and slung her bag on her shoulder and tucked her hair underneath this rather becoming navy hat that she recently purchased and she walked out the door.

and where was i before the day

that i first saw your lovely face

now i see it everyday

She got offered a job. Not just a job. A title. A large paycheck, more money than she's probably ever seen. With R-e-s-p-e-c-t, all tied up with a bow.

Sure, it's a dot-com. The chance of it lasting is about the same as us surviving another election, winning another four years. It's a job where she'll probably have a secretary to get her coffee, instead of being mistaken for one and getting coffee for others. Others that don't include me, obviously.

It was an offer of more free time, a chance to get the degree she always talks about but never goes for. Whether out of sheer exhaustion or fear, or maybe both, she always pushes it aside, waiting for an opening just like that.

It was the free ride, the lifeboat from the sinking ship, the ticket to fun in the sun and a bright new future.

I offered her nothing. I offered her what she already had. I offered her me.

I'm not enough.

and i know

that i am

i am

i am the luckiest

I'm sitting here in the dark thinking what it would be like if she didn't walk through that door tomorrow and that causes my chest to constrict painfully. I take a deep breath and count to ten, focusing on the air entering and leaving my lungs. She will walk through that door and she'll hang up her coat like she always does, and tuck her purse away in the lower drawer of her desk and she'll go make herself a cup of coffee and not get one for me.

But unlike before, she won't joke about not getting any for me. She just walks away from the machine, quietly sits at her desk and starts the work of the day. And the day wears on, the work ebbs and flows, but the banter does not.

And yet, she comes in the door every morning.

I should remember that.

I should be grateful.

I'm not nearly enough.

what if i'd been born

fifty years before you

in a house

on the street where you live

I should be proud. Proud of myself for making Donna into what she is, that she is offered lucrative jobs because of my handiwork. Proud of her for becoming this dynamo, this unstoppable force that controls everything that I do and say. I can't function without her; I've become dependent on her notes, her memos, her teasing even.

I took an unskilled college dropout and turned her into someone who helps initiate policy for the federal government. I turned her into my watchdog, someone of importance, someone who other people have to suck up to in order to reach me because they know if Donna's on board, I'll get no sleep until I capitulate or give damn good reasons otherwise.

I wonder if teachers have this much trouble when they lose their favorite and most devoted students after graduation. That's what the offer is, anyhow. Her graduation. Proof that she's more than just an assistant, more than an expensive piece of paper issued by an institution that says she's intelligent.

I should be proud. I helped do that.

I steal another glance at my watch. The numbers are still bleeding together, but I think it's after midnight. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

It was all her.

I didn't do a thing.

maybe i'd be outside

as you passed on your bike

would i know?

in a wide sea of eyes

see one pair that i recognize

The light is burning my eyes. I look down at the stack of papers on my desk and determine that they can remain there untouched until tomorrow. I start throwing stuff into my knapsack and sling that over one shoulder, while my other unoccupied arm grabs my coat off its hook.

I shut off the light and stand there for a few moments, in the darkness, just letting my eyes relax and adjust. With one last glance at those papers, I sigh, and shove them into my knapsack. I have nothing better to do tonight anyhow.

I walk through the halls and my footsteps echo weirdly in the lobby. Mike, one of the guards that has the nightshift says goodnight and I just nod, weakly smile and go on, out the door.

I stop once I get past the gates. If I go right, I can get in my car and be home in ten minutes, so that I can read the file and call Amy and get at least five hours of sleep.

I go left.

I head in the direction of Lafayette Park, the unseasonably warm night air ruffling my hair, the streets deserted and quiet. I walk on, without a clear destination in mind, just to walk, just stalling for more time before I have to go home to face papers and blinking lights and the oblivion of sleep.

She was tired tonight and so am I.

and i know

that i am

i am

i am the luckiest

She doesn't have to walk through that door tomorrow. She doesn't have to walk through that door just as I don't have to go home right now. It's her choice.

Something tells me that I won out tonight, that she will choose the White House, that she'll choose me. But God help me, I can't figure out why.

I don't know why she should care, what impossible devotion and idealism and patriotism and loyalty could inspire her to stick with us, with me

She is my friend and I hope that she considers me likewise. And I know that she holds fiercely to her friends, a trait which she says I have exhibited on more than one occasion myself.

There were moments when I wish I were more. There were moments in the history of our relationship, as coworkers, as friends, that could be interpreted as vaguely romantic.

But I have Amy and she has Cliff and we don't talk like we used to anymore.

Which is just another reason why I can't comprehend why she'd stay, she'd stick by a guy like me. A guy who's done nothing to deserve her. A guy who's just a friend and nothing more.

love you more than I have

ever found a way to say to you

I've turned around now and have started to head back in the direction I came, looking back at the same streets, still empty and quiet and dark.

I don't even bother to look at my watch but I guess that it must be around one. I feel like I've been walking for a half hour but then, I've never been good with the time. Or so I'm told.

I bet Amy's still up, still strategizing and planning for her meetings in the morning- rehearsing her manifestos and threats.

Donna's probably asleep, dreaming of somebody else, of other things, of bigger things, of something other than me and her job. That job that against all reason she will return to the following day, more chipper than me cause she's at home sleeping right now while I'm walking the streets like a political vagabond.

I hope her dreams are nice and I'm glad that she doesn't dream of me. Because I'd screw it up.

I think I like Amy. But I second guess myself all the time- if I really liked-liked her, why wouldn't I want to call her? Why wouldn't I want to go home and face the streamers hanging from the lights and the light on the answering machine? Why wouldn't I be rushing to do that very thing?

I wonder if Amy minds. If she thinks I'm an asshole because I haven't called her. Donna would mind, I think. And that's why I'm glad she doesn't know how much I care, and that she has Cliff and that hopefully he's treating her right and calling her like he's supposed to. She deserves someone like that.

Someone not like me.

next door

there's an old man

who lived into his nineties

and one day passed away in his sleep

and his wife, she stayed

for a couple of days and passed away

I am the job. I always laugh when I hear tv detectives say that because though they constantly solve crimes, they generally enter in and out of each other's bedrooms several times in one episode.

But I am what I do and quite frankly, it's pathetic. I don't have a pet, I don't have a life. I don't go see movies on the weekends and I don't go to baseball games and I don't go to concerts. Until recently, I didn't even have a girlfriend. I live and breathe politics and for a very long time I was okay with that.

I don't know if I am anymore. I want more. I want the things that my friends from college have: wives, kids, family vacations.

I chose this path in my life, I realize this. I understand that I made the decision to get involved in politics, I made the decision to accept the White House and everything that comes along with it.

As much as I like Amy, I can't see myself with her once I'm out of the White House. I have this sneaking suspicion that I won't be as 'qualified' to be her other half anymore, with my prestigious position long gone.

And once the White House is gone, so is everyone else. Sam, Toby, CJ, Leo. They'll go their separate ways, just like they had before. Maybe the options for the directions of flight are different, wider, broader, but they remain open and for the taking. I'll lose them all.

I'll lose her too.

i'm sorry i know that's a

strange way to tell you that i know

we belong

The road ahead is long and dark, stretched and distorted in my blurry vision. I realize somewhat belatedly that I'm back where I started, in front of the White House, startlingly bright against the blackness of the night, and my car is only a few blocks away.

I continue onward, thinking about the future and how tomorrow is going to turn out, when Donna comes in like she always does even though now she doesn't have to in order to thanklessly help me survive the day.

My car starts up with a grumble that reverberates in my ears compared to the silence I've grown accustomed to in the last couple hours. I stare at the steering wheel for a few moments that seem like minutes as the motor continues to run.

I should go home.

So I drive, but I know that when I get there, I won't read the papers in my knapsack and I won't call Amy. I'm going to go to sleep so that when I walk into the office, I won't grumble or snap at Donna but have a civil conversation. Kinda like we used to, before things got off kilter. When we fit in that perfect harmony and neither of us was inferior or wrong or unhappy or tired.

I'm exhausted and I need to go home and sleep.

It's been a long day.

and i know

that i am

i am

i am the luckiest.

FIN.

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